


韧心，任星 (not even the stars)

by silameninggal



Series: subjugation [1]
Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, Depression, Eye Trauma, Hopeful Ending, Injury Recovery, Long Live Feedback Comment Project, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Procedures, Medical Trauma, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Order 66 Aftermath (Star Wars), Order 66 Happened Differently (Star Wars), Past Drug Use, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Past Torture, Past Violence, Planet Tatooine (Star Wars), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Rape Recovery, Rebel Alliance (Star Wars), Survivor Guilt, Trophy!AU, from the obikin discord
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:41:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27279667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silameninggal/pseuds/silameninggal
Summary: AU where Palpatine has his eyes set on Anakin Skywalker, not as an apprentice, but as his prize after gaining control of the senate. As a result, order 66 goes differently. Anakin has suffered greatly in Palpatine's hands. Now in exile with Obi-Wan on Tatooine, Anakin recovers, slowly.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker
Series: subjugation [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2067255
Comments: 14
Kudos: 81





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Noise of Waters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20794106) by [LuvEwan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuvEwan/pseuds/LuvEwan). 



> Inspired by that one tumblr post that went something around the lines of 'Palpatine already had control of the senate and Anakin was just his prize' that I can't find, so i would be glad if someone could link it. Also, a deep introspection of my medical and chronic-illness related trauma. TWs in the tags, so read them and heed them. This is a wip that will be updated very irregularly, but I do hope on finishing this. Partially inspired by LuvEwan's fic that lives rent-free in my head. Thanks to [Anna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karkedup) for letting me fling this AU at her and for her infinite patience when it comes to the endless revisions.

Anakin awoke to rough sheets and the chill of night. He had never grown used to the cold nights of Coruscant, chilly despite the temperate weather. The wind howled outside, stirring around tiny particles that drifted with the wind.

He wasn’t on Coruscant. The wind was too strong for it to have been. 

He felt around the sheets, despite the throbbing of his heavy forearm, his legs. The blanket that had been wrapped around him was scratchy but warm. He squirmed, trying to sit up, despite the fact that he was in pain, so much of it that his head swam. He laid back onto the thin mattress, whimpering. 

“Shhhh,” 

A hand smoothed over his forehead, brushing hair away from his temples, and Anakin flinched, afraid. 

“Anakin, it’s me,” the voice said, and it sounded so familiar that Anakin could weep from it. Just like Obi-Wan. But Obi-Wan’s dead and this must be another one of Palpatine’s —

“Anakin, dear one, it’s me,” Not-Obi-Wan says. “Anakin, look, it’s me,”

Anakin, bandaged-wrapped limbs heavy and dumb, turns and smothers himself in the sheets, shuddering. He can feel Not-Obi-Wan’s imminent horror at the scars crisscrossing his back that must be silvery-white, the bruises that he can feel on his hips. He wishes it were Obi-Wan that was standing there, that his calloused hands were the ones soothing him from the relentless shivers, as he burned both hot and cold. 

“Anakin,” Not-Obi-Wan said, voice thick, “Anakin, reach out to the Force and let go, it’s me, dear one,” Hands, rough and worn, returned to tuck hair behind his ears. “Anakin, let go and feel, just feel.” 

“I can’t,” Anakin says, throat still sore from when— when Palpatine had— “I can’t,”

“Trust me, Anakin,” Not-Obi-Wan says, voice a whisper, and if Anakin could scream and rage about the collar around his neck, the collar that marked him a slave, again,

Rough hands brought cold fingers to rest against his neck, where the collar was— had been, he realized with a start, when his fingertips brushed against bare skin. He startled at the foreign sensation, the skin of his neck bared and free, and he started to weep.

“Anakin,” Not-Obi-Wan said, voice shaking with unshed tears. “It’s me.”

Anakin reached out the force, embracing the ebb and flow of it as it rushed through his veins, though it made him nauseous and twitchy as it filled and burst into the dark spaces that festered in his mind, and he sobbed as he felt the pain of its absence fade into the jitteriness that he had carried with him for so long, that he had missed. He reached out and felt Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan standing there by his bedside, well and alive, and he sobbed harder, Obi-Wan shifting to wrap him in his arms. 

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin gasped between sobs, ”Obi-Wan,”

“I’m here,” Obi-Wan said. “I’m right here.”


	2. 苦

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for injections and syringes if you're squeamish about that. Read the tags and heed the tags. This work has become a constant experimentation in my writing style so please comment if there are any inconsistencies.

The days on Tatooine stretch into an expanseless, identical abyss, days and nights blurred, smeared together, suns beating down on hot sands, morphing into the half-chill of twilight as faint shadows creep across the abode, starlight faintly illuminating the vague outlines of scant furnishing.

Obi-Wan shuffles across the floor, bag of meds, syringes in hand. He’s a sentry, tonight. Will be for as long as it takes. For as long as he needs to be.

When he gets to the bedroom, Anakin’s face is twisted in pain. Obi-Wan dumps the bag on the dresser and fishes out painkiller hypos, disinfectant swabs, squinting to read labels in the dim light. He climbs onto the bed, careful of Anakin’s bandaged, broken limbs — Palpatine had, according to Bail’s wary observations, had done far more than just break his limbs.

“Anakin, I’m going to give you some painkillers, okay?” he says, softly. “Just a hypo, and we’re done,”

Anakin groans.

Obi-Wan peels the syringe out of its sterile packaging, letting the plastic wrapping fall to the floor. He’ll worry about it later. He shifts, helping Anakin to roll onto his side, letting him adjust to the change in position. Obi-Wan reaches to pull the waistband of Anakin’s sleep pants down, but he stiffens, recoils.

Obi-Wan pulls his hand away, heart aching in his chest. Had Anakin, even in this state, been made to—

He had been, repeatedly, according to the reports made by the med droids on the transport. There had been blood on the sheets when Obi-Wan broke into the room. The droids soaked Anakin in bacta until he woke up. His (newly-acquired) aversion to even the smell of it making it impossible for them to continue. With bacta out of the question, Anakin’s wounds could only be healed with time.

And time was costly.

Anakin curls forward, hissing as a new wave of pain wracks his gaunt, frail form. Obi-Wan sighs, reaching for the packet of sanitizing swabs. Anakin hates this, has always hated the medbay, now hates being touched at all. But with Anakin radiating pain in the Force so strongly that even Obi-Wan can feel it in his bones through his duracrete-strong shields, he needs to get the meds into his system.

“Anakin, I’m going to administer the spray on your hip. I need you to relax so the needle won’t injure you,” he says, adjusting the bedding and wedging a pillow against Anakin’s back and the wall so he’s supported. “It’ll just sting a bit,”

He tugs the waistband of Anakin’s sleep pants down, wiping the small bit of skin with a swab. Quickly, he uncaps the syringe, taps it, then inserts it into the muscle that covers Anakin’s hipbones and presses the plunger.

Underneath, Anakin whines, complaining.

“I know you hate this, but you’ll feel much better in a bit,” Obi-Wan grouses, withdrawing the syringe and covering the hypo site with sticking-plaster. “There, all done.” He pulls the waistband of Anakin’s pants back up, rolls him onto his back. There were bruises and bite-marks all over Anakin’s torso, but no broken ribs, thankfully. Still, Anakin huffs, annoyed at having been disturbed. Obi-Wan helps him pull the blanket back up, knowing that Anakin will be cold even though the shakes have stopped. He moves to leave, but when he does, Anakin clears his throat, shifts towards his presence.

“Please stay,” he begs, voice hoarse from disuse. “Obi-Wan, please, I’m —”

Obi-Wan’s heart shatters. He moves to wrap Anakin in his arms, on instinct, from years of comforting his padawan; then freezes, remembering how Anakin flinched at every touch even when comatose, the realization a blow, stealing his breath. The ache in his chest grows, ever heavier, a constant reminder of how he’s failed, failed as a Jedi master, failed the Order, failed Anakin,

And how it was that had Anakin paid for his failures.

“I’m here, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, hoping to reassure him. “I’ll be always be here.”

Anakin mumbles in acquiescence, Force Signature dimming as drowsiness hazes over the pain.

Obi-Wan settles on the chair by the bed, ready to continue his vigil. He watches, as Anakin’s expression shifts from tense to lax, the painkillers taking effect. The planes of Anakin’s chest rise and fall steadily as he drifts off to sleep, fingers twitching unconsciously.

“You’re safe, dear one,” he whispers, though he knows that Anakin’s too far gone to hear. “I promise.” It’s too late for him to undo what already has been done, but this is the one promise that he will die keeping.

He’s failed Anakin. He won’t fail him again.

The stars streak across the sky, the galaxy continuing on its trajectory. Obi-Wan watches, grief and guilt a leaden weight, pulsing against his own heart, seeping into his veins. Sidious had fooled them all, the Senate, the Council. He’d been blinded, in the aftermath, after the moments of bloodshed that he still saw in his sleep, thinking that Anakin had died along with the rest of the Order, as he fled his pursuers and his own memories. Giving in to the rage and anguish was easy when he had thought him dead, fueling his strikes against the Empire, against the men who had betrayed him. The bodies that he’d left behind could scarcely be identified as such.

He isn’t proud of it.

Had he known that Sidious had taken Anakin, had broken him, with glee, for his own sick, twisted pleasure; he’d have— have done more, consolidating resources for the fledgling alliance instead of raiding trooper bases in his fury. It should have been him, that Sidious had taken, not Anakin, who had been strong and full of light and so, so brave; now barely a shadow of himself.

The tears work their way up his throat, spill down his cheeks.

Tomorrow, Anakin will wake, and Obi-Wan will tend to his wounds, change the dressings, work his arms and legs to strengthen them. Maybe, just maybe, it’ll be easier tomorrow. Maybe it won’t, and all Obi-wan can do is to hope. Time and tides shift, and so does Anakin’s pains. The only constants that seem to be are the suns and the sands.

He can hope. After all, rebellions are built on hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [Tumblr](https://perangbintang.tumblr.com/) for shitposts, memes, and occasional snippets and me screaming about our favorite dastardly duo. You're more than welcome to submit prompts and asks :)
> 
> This story is part of the [ LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
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